Not Much of a secret
by SirShriek
Summary: It's no secret why Corypheus can't win. He's easily distracted, infatuated with the Inquisitor and his army is full of idiots. Rated T for swearing.
1. Chapter 1

_Don't think about it,_ _don't think about it,_ _don't think about it, think of anything else but that._ Corypheus was having a difficult time keeping his mind off off- _DON'T THINK ABOUT IT. Focus!_ Right, what was he doing? He was hidden away in his study, reviewing several new reports. One of his scout teams had been relatively successful in achieving their objective. They had found a High Dragon, but several of them didn't and had gotten eaten. _Stupid sods._ The report said where and when they had found it but not much more. _And that it was, a direct quote, ''fucking huge.'' Yeah, no shit._ Corypheus thought to himself sarcastically. Plans for his tribute to Dumat and possibly one of his most powerful weapons was coming together splendidly. He had the majority of the needed materials loaded in carts, perhaps slightly overloaded, and ready to move out. Subduing the beast would be no small feat and may require some more **_specialized_** magics, and a hell of a lot of bandages. Not for himself or the creature, but for the troops unfortunate enough to be selected to tag along.

Such spells might be found in his library. The shelves were lined with various books, scrolls and other literature he had collected and stashed in the Deep Roads an age ago, before the Grey Wardens had locked him away. When he had returned to his cache of knowledge he had found it had been rifled trough with scrolls and pages askew, some were even missing, and an apologetic note from the only other man who knew of it's existence. Whatever that daft bastard was up to now it was of no concern of his. _If the Architect wants to 'borrow' something else, he can stick it where the sun doesn't shine._ Corypheus' thoughts snarled, remembering all of his things his fellow magister had 'borrowed' and never returned.

He headed to the library and perused the dusty stacks of tomes. Some newer, modern books had been slipped in with the last few shipments. Corypheus plucked a brightly coloured one from the stack and was drawn in by the words of praise on the back cover. With his original reason of why he had come here forgotten he threw a cushion off a chair onto the floor and plonked himself down in its place. The wood groaned under his weight.

Enthralled by the first few chapters he was severely disappointed when the story took a turn into the extremely dull. His bored mind decided to add its own embellishments.

The heavy wooden doors trust open making a loud booming noise like a thunder clap as they swung inwards and struck the cracked stone walls, the sound filling the abrupt silence. Its dying echo rolling though the empty spaces of the decrepit ruin as the elf barged into the room with his pale straw colored hair dancing behind him in the cold mountain wind-

 _Damn it all,_ he thought had of it. _Might as well go along for the ride._

-a vision of a conquering hero in a child's tale. Corypheus idly speculated what that hair would feel like, sliding though his fingers. Would it be soft and smooth as silk, or rough and wiry like a stray dog? _Stray dog? Where did that thought come from?_

"What's going on here!?" He demands, a staff in hand. A mage. _Upon reflection,_ Corypheus thought, _the elf loses points as a brave hero, for his staff was little more than a large, twisted stick. Even as an apprentice I had the most exquisite-_ Corypheus' thought's reached back into a thousand years of memory and got lost there for a while, recounting every staff he ever had in excruciating detail and made a mental note to get his favorite remade before eventually circling back.

Eyes of the same swirling fiery green hues as the orb in Corypheus' grasp met his own bitter grey gaze. Such intensity and determination he had seen in those eyes. Something reached out from those fathomless depths, trailing a phantom finger-tip across his ancient blackened heart and left an ember of something he had long ago forgotten. The sensation was just as jarring as the initial interruption, perhaps more so, for in his unguarded state the binding magic on the sacrifice relaxed and she smacked him hard across the face, sending the elven globe tumbling to the floor to roll to a stop at the elf's leather boots with a soft tap. In the split second after he scooped it up, a delicate crease appearing between his brows as he began to frown, the artifact exploded in a cataclysm of heat and blinding light, blasting the elf into the presumed mists of the arse-end of the Fade.

It wasn't like Corypheus liked the elf, as in like like. At least he didn't think so. It was just that the elf was always in his head, lurking in the background just out of sight.

 _I wonder if he's still alive?_ Corypheus pondered. After all he himself had survived the cataclysm, as well as his accompanying entourage. Well, except Gerald, he's pretty toasted, but no one liked him anyway. He'd been cheating far too well at Wicked Grace of late.

"I have to find him." Corypheus said quietly, words tinted with something distantly related to longing.

"Find whom, sir?" Samson inquired looking up from frantically scribbling on parchment, sat at a desk in the corner.

The Templar's rough voice snapped Corypheus out of his reverie, unaware that he'd said a word or that anyone else was even in the room with him for that matter. He peered over the open book in his hands that he had completely ignored for the past half an hour. He sat up, closed the book and set it down upon the small table beside the armchair he'd been lounging in, sideways with his legs dangling over the chair arm and his back resting on the other. It was a comfortable way to sit but it also leaves him with a crick in his neck when he stands up.

"The _rattus_ who stole the Anchor, maybe I can get it back. Even if I have to skin him." Corypheus said annoyed that he'd been oblivious to the shiny man. He also hoped that Sampson hadn't noticed he had been reading something called _'Hard in Hightown.'_

"Oh him. Haven't found hair nor hide of the lad." At Corypheus' scowl he hastily added; "But I'll send word to our operations, see if they've heard anything."

"Good." Corypheus snatched up his book from the small table and strode out of the room towards his private chambers.


	2. Chapter 2

The dragon soared high above,roaming its territory, twisting and turning with ease as the master of the skies. Its big orange eyes searched the landscape below.

Corypheus raised a pale hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the growing dawn. The vista before him was staggeringly beautiful. The sun cresting the hills nad painting everything in golden hues with its Midas touch. The sunlight striking the retreating night, leaving pink and red wounds blooming in its wake.

In Corypheus' view the dragon was like a big fat fly buzzing around, trapped in an ornate stained glass bottle.

There was a lot of things to be done before nightfall. He had cleared out this entire day as well as the entirety of the following week in his schedule to force the beast to submit to his will. No doubt a trying task.

His carefully planed trap was never implemented however for the dragon had spotted the glint of his troops' shiny plate armor, swooped in and was upon them like a rabid dog in a hen house as soon as they had emerged from the tree line. In the cover of night and in the shadows of the forest Corypheus hadn't noticed that no-one had read the memo or found someone willing to read it for them. Dull your armor or wear a cloak over it. Dragons like shiny things.

Utter carnage ensued. Corypheus had ordered that the brute would not be slain nor mortally wounded, so no-one had drawn their swords or staves and just ran around screaming in dizzying circles.

"The ropes! Throw the damned ropes!" Corypheus roared as he sidestepped a stamping scaly foot that squelched down onto someone unfortunate enough to have tripped over an intestine someone else was missing.  
Amid the blood and terror the few survivors who had ropes, actually long metal chains with every link viciously barbed to dissuade it from fighting back, threw them. The ones who missed died for their inaccuracy. Corypheus snatched up the chain swinging around, dangling from the dragons' wildly thrashing head and heaved with every fiber of his being to bring it down.

The beast fought with every ounce of its considerable strength, but more heavy chains arced over the creature's back, but not quite high enough as they punctured the wing and tore ragged holes in the membrane. It bellowed in rage and pain unleashing a torrent of fire that Corypheus narrowly avoided. He cast a Winters Grasp that hit it squarely in the chest. With the air knocked of it, its head bowed low and Corypheus looped the chain over its muzzle and pulled it tight, then slammed the spike at his end of the chain deep into the red stained earth.

After one hell of a fierce fight he dragon was eventually secured and lashed to the ground. Tied up it looked small and pathetic, a little lizard with a big attitude. It never took its eyes off of Corypheus, spitting small spouts of flame at him when he got too close. It watched as he stalked out of view around it, inspecting it, prodding it, growling when he stuck shards of red lyrium into its open wounds. Corypheus had lost many men and women, it was difficult to tell exactly how many looking at the mass of body parts littering the ground. The stench of death and burnt hair was everywhere. However he could turn that loss into something useful at least.

After furiously patting out the flames nibbling on the hem of his robes Corypheus began to chant in Tevene, swaying his body all about the place, seeming to imitate an exotic dance. He threw up his arms with a shout and the spilled blood sprang up from the floor like crimson serpents that slithered trough the air towards him. He slid a long slender knife from his belt and ran the sharp blade across his forearm, inky black liquid beading on his grey skin. It mingled with the stream witch then dived into the nearest wound on the dragon who roared and screamed.

The the dragons withering form began to grow still as the Taint took hold. Its eyes closed as blackness spread across its skin and sections of scales dried up and shed like leaves in autumn. It looked dead and it certainly smelled like it was dead.

On the second day the red lyrium had leached into the flesh leaving no trace that mountainous chunks had ever been shoved in the wounds.  
On the third day the wounds began to fester fiercely as they healed, leaving long ragged grey scars.  
On the fourth and final day its eyes flicked open with a cold black fire smouldering in the dark depths within. The dragon staggered to its feet, unsteady as its strength returned. It uttered a deafening roar as it snapped the ensnaring chains like old worn string.

Corypheus was caught off guard for the second time that week and staggered back as the force of the beasts call slammed into him. He had been standing around nearby passing the time with a lesser mage by playing a game of I-Spy. Corypheus' growing frustration at every wrong guess could only be matched by the mages' glee and the shit eating grin nearly splitting his face in half to the point where Corypheus thought the mage would swallow himself whole.

The dragon spread its tattered leathery wings out and held its head high, revealing striking streaks of glittering red lyrium in a mane of razor sharp spikes.

Corypheus spared a fleeting moment to marvel at it's beauty. _It. Is. Glorious. No,_ _ **she,**_ _is glorious._ Corypheus corrected himself. The dragon was a lady.

Shooing his startled subordinates back Corypheus stared up at his marvelous new creation, entering into what looked like a potentially deadly staring contest. In actuality it was a battle of cunning and wit, only able to be seen in the minds eye of the shared Taint that bound them together.

On the intertwined mental battlefield Corypheus, to the bewilderment of the dragon, stretched his ethereal form into impossible proportions and the landscape grew dark in his increasing shadow. He scooped up the dragon now a harmless little lizard, and caged it with his long grey noodley fingers. The dragon tried to free itself with claws, fangs and fire to no avail. Corypheus drew his palms together squishing the creature smaller and smaller with the same amount of glee a child has when they'd found their long lost toy, presumed stolen by the snot face whom lived down the road. Corypheus stopped himself before completely crushing the dragons' essence out of existence saving the last small sliver to keep the body independently functioning. _Who has the time to micromanage the the inner goings on of a ten-tonne lizard? Who even knows what those inner goings on are? This could turn out to be an excellent learning opportunity._

* * *

''I knew... you could do it." Sampson said dismayed to be in the terrifying presence the was Tabitha. It seemed like the thing to do, to name it. Couldn't keep calling it 'It', think of all the misunderstandings and confusion that would cause. Corypheus had thought too long and too hard about what to call it on the long way home before finally settling on Tabitha. He had considered many other names but that one seemed to stick.  
She towered over the templar, her head cavernous ceiling. How it got inside was a complete mystery to Samson.  
"My dear Sampson, there was no more faith in you, than in a stewed prune." Corypheus said smugly, immensely leased with himself.


	3. Chapter 3

Corypheus stalked the lavishly decorated halls of his lair like a hungry tiger searching for prey, his robes billowing ominously in his wake. Servants and slaves ducked out of sight at his approach, some normalcy at least he supposed, until someone at the far end of the corridor behind him yelled; "Sir!". He ignored the call and glanced into doorways as he continued his search. Still no sign of his quarry. _Where are they?_  
At the sound of foot steps tapping their way closer on the cold marble floor, chasing him with the same frantic-ness of a small child after its mother terrified she'll leave him all alone, Corypheus ducked into the next room he came across slamming the old wooden door into his pursuers face. There was a thump and a satisfying grunt of stifled pain. Corypheus took in his surroundings, there were no other doors or means of escape or anything at all really. The room was empty. Bare stone brick walls and a green shiny beetle scurrying across a threadbare carpet. _Fancy locking your self in a storage cupboard, idiot._ A moment of blessed silence passed all too quickly as there was a polite, if hesitant knock.

"Who is it?" Corypheus asked, feigning ignorance.

"Me."

"Me who?" Corypheus _really_ didn't want to talk to him.

"Samson sir. There are matters we really should discuss."

"I'm busy?"

Corypheus opened the door a crack and peered out. Sure enough, the Templar stood in the hall. Wiping at a persistent trickle of blood from his bruised nose with the back of his gauntleted hand and smearing an amusing red mustache across his lip. Obviously he was not buying his terrible lie.

Corypheus stepped back and let the door swing fully open on its own weight. He stood motionless, face expertly schooled to show nothing and arms tightly folded under his armpits in the now vacant door frame waiting for the smaller man to speak.

Samson cleared his throat several times before speaking. _Hopefully he's choking on his own blood and I can gracefully step over his corpse._ Corypheus thought impatient.

"As you can see sir, we have run out of supplies."

Corypheus simply glared at him.

"We have no coin to buy food, weapons or any other supplies. The men we have, came to us with nothing more than the coin in their pockets, clothes on their backs and the swords at their sides. I'm afraid we're broke sir."

 _Well shit._ No money, no food, no army, it's as simple as that. Corypheus had no idea how to raise money, coming from a wealthy Tivinter noble house he had never needed to. He envisioned selling sweet-tasting drinks at a dusty roadside from a homemade stall like an _**urchin**_ **.** That simply wouldn't do, and who would ever take a sweet-tasting drink from a Darkspawn? Oh, he was talking to one. The Taint infused red lyrium, the only thing keeping his rag-tag army from deserting, had that oddity. _One for the scholars to look into one day, that._

Corypheus sighed inwardly and closed the door behind him, the catch sliding into place with a soft click was the only sound in the strangely quiet hallway. He supposed they could sell enchantments made by the remnants of the tranquil mages on the back market, as they would be using his own knowledge and methods the enchantments would be significantly more powerful and more likely to attract unwanted attention if sold openly. He could do that, if he could find the blasted mages. Usually all he had to do was follow the sound of some scrap or lewd song more suited to a tavern.

 _To plan B then,_ Corypheus supposed, he had a mountain of old crap stowed away somewhere, surely something in it had some worth if a buyer could be found.

"Samson," Corypheus began as he sidestepped the Templar and brushed a spiderweb, acquired from his most recent misadventure, from the hem of his silk sleeve. "Down the next hall, somewhere on the south side, there is massive pile of assorted ancient relics and decrepit crap. You are welcome to sell whatever you can carry out of there."

Samson practically exploded with joy at the chance to line his pockets, and the pockets of his master of course. But mostly his own.

"Go. Now. Off with you."

The shiny man flew off back up the hallway like the bolt of lightning onlookers saw. Finally free of his pestering shadow Corypheus resumed his futile hunt for his fellow mages. Since the light of dawn that day he hadn't seen a single one. No-one had set anyone's hair on fire or found an array of insects or something equally unpleasant in their beds either.

Distant screaming echoed to his ears. He had intentionally neglected to mention Tabitha had taken up residence in that cavern and really liked that particular collection of miscellaneous oddities. The scene he imagined brought a chuckle to his cracked lips and put a spring in his step, witch happened to be a not so good thing, as he hit his head on the ceiling. It was at the optimal height for everyone else but just this side of too low for him. Mood dampened he resumed his journey to his office more cautiously.

His office contained Samson's small desk, the scarred tabletop littered with the mundane day-to-day things, like the latrine duty roster. There was also one of the rare chairs capable of holding his weight and a lofty ceiling to accommodate his height. Looking up he saw the fearsome visage of the snarling high-dragon painted there, poised as if to eat him. The illusion of life was shattered by the deep fractures in the plaster splitting its torso in half. The long table at the back was stacked high with neglected reports, research notes and several heavy tomes. Corypheus leafed through them with disinterest, glancing over the summaries until one caught his eye.

This particular piece of creased parchment detailed his elven upstart's most recent adventures. It seemed his spy team finally found him, holed up in the mountain village of Haven, the last stop on a pilgrimage to an absent god. It also looked like he'd gained a title, 'The Herald of Andraste', and the ire of the Chantry.

They blamed him for a number of things, the destruction of the sacred final resting place of the Maker's chosen,- _True, by interrupting my ritual. That was indeed his fault. -_ the Breach. The gaping maw in the sky vomiting out demons, a jagged rupture in the very fabric of the Veil itself. And lastly, the cold blooded murder of the most holy, the Divine. In Corypheus' opinion the Breach was also technically the Herald's fault, but offing the old Chantry hag? That was his own doing. Credit where credit is due, he would not be upstaged by that pathetic excuse for a mage.

Corypheus would not allow it, would not abide by it, as soon as he has had house in order he would march on Haven and get the recognition he deserved, and the Anchor. Corypheus' inner child, caged and well hidden in his soul as it was, was thrilled at the excuse to see the Herald again.


	4. Chapter 4

The usually sleepy village of Haven was alive with laughter and song, celebrating the Herald's sky-sewing skills. The Breach was sealed at last and the rising tide of demons stemmed. Dancing in the streets churned the snow into slippery slush and muck. The candles burning low in the high windows of the Chantry gave the building a frowning expression, as if it disproved of the festivities as much as the Revered Mother did. She was a grouchy old bag when other people were happy.

Corypheus closed his eyes and reached out with his mind fumbling through the Darkspawn taint traversing the dark tangle of unseen paths to his pet, Tabitha. He took advantage of the dragons far-sight to scout the village himself. He spotted a dwarf with his nose stuck in a wine cup stumble into an oncoming parade of dancers and near split his sides as they all collided. An unfortunate side effect of hijacking a dragon's mind was that she felt what he felt. A deep rumble like distant thunder or rocks tumbling in a landslide escaped Tabitha's scaly peeling lips.

"Well that's unnerving." A Templar said pointing out the spectacle to his friend Nema who was furiously blowing on her cold stiff hands.

"What is?"

"That."

"Could you be anymore vague?" She snapped at him. "Actually, I couldn't give a _toss_ about whatever it is you're on about. I'm freezing my balls off, I can't see shit and my armor is full of sticks from tripping over all these damned roots!"

"But you don't have balls."

Nema clenched her fist tightly and smacked Makial straight across his pointy bearded chin with it.

Corypheus relinquished control of Tabitha and she leaped high into the air taking wing to herd the flagging Templars that were falling too far behind the column, like a monstrous sheepdog. Diving in low and snapping at them with her terrifying jaws. It soon turned into something of a game for her.

Corypheus turned to find his two Lieutenants squabbling like petty children. Why Samson had chosen those particular two, Corypheus couldn't fathom the words to say.

As snow-flakes began to fall, a cold wind picked up. It's icy fingers prying its way into the small gaps in the soldiers' armor and chilling them to their bones. The men and women following Corypheus shivered like the sparse leaves on the trees around them, the air resounded with the monotonous metallic tinkle of metal tapping on metal.

The scuffle between the two lieutenants was ended quickly with a swift smack to the both of them from Samson along with a stern scolding. When Samson had returned to his place beside his master, Makial's numb fingers fumbled with flint and steel to light his torch. He offered what little warmth it emitted to Nema, as a peace offering and as an attempt to cheer her. A young lad in the row behind them clumsily snaked his arm around between them and lit his own torch on theirs.

"I've b-been trying to light m-mine for the last two hours." He stammered through chattering teeth.

Everyone was suddenly jostling each other. Flames bloomed all over in the darkness, spreading like a wildfire in a drought all up the column.

Corypheus was furious that their position had been given away. The invading force illuminated on the previously dark mountainside for all to see. He supposed he could use his magic to simultaneously smother them all. The torches not his soldiers, although that idea greatly appealed to him. The deep tolling of Haven's bell ringing out in alarm across the mountain range declared loudly that it was too late, they had already been discovered.

 _Well, fuck._ Corypheus thought dismayed, his meticulous plans were once again in tatters. He didn't know why he bothered with them anymore. Force of habit maybe.

 _Oh, screw it all_. "Charge!" He roared.

No one had heard him as they we're busy keeping warm. _If they want to be warm, so be it. Tabitha!_

The great dragon thudded down on the snow behind them, spread its leathery wings wide and bellowed spitting forth torrents of flame. The imposing display did the trick.

Corypheus watched amused as his army flew down the mountain with singed bottoms in a uncoordinated avalanche, to crush the ants of Haven scrabbling to arm themselves. He strode through the waist high snow like a hot knife though passing trough butter.

"Was that necessary?" Samson grumbled as he joined the ancient magister standing on a high ridge. He was once again singed by dragon fire. He hastily ran his fingers though his patchy burnt hair in an attempt to comb it over the bare places.

"Yes." Corypheus said simply. He spotted his mages in amid the melee fighting against him. The fact that they were no longer his mages irked him, fuel for the twin fires of hate and admiration. Alexius and his time travel research had caused no end of headaches to Corypheus with the paradoxes and mind bending formulas. How the Herald had delt with it he would love to find out.

The Herald, accompanied by several people, was talking to a skinny boy in a ridiculously big floppy hat outside the spiked main gates of the village. A man swaddled in a great fur cape, that made him look like bear, made sharp angered gestures with is sword. Corypheus's heart stopped as the boy pointed straight at him. The Herald's gaze followed the ghostly outstretched finger and Corypheus found himself pinned in place by that piercing green gaze, like an ugly butterfly in a scholars collection.

 _Wait a minute... I know that stupid face, or one remarkably similar.  
_

Corypheus frowned, a deep gauge appearing between where his eyebrows should be. Something about the Herald looked familiar, the notion a slippery eel that twisted and wriggled through his mottled grey fingers.

The explosion on the opposite mountain caught his attention just in time as an avalanche charged down like a stampede of giant white horses. Their hooves smashing his reserve forces into icy tombs.

 _Catapults. Terrific._ Cortpheus thought sourly.

Tabitha shrieked as she dove through the air spitting searing fireballs to immolate the war machines, filling the air with jagged splinters of burning wood. The remaining defenders broke and were fleeing to the Chantry when Corypheus spotted the Herald pushing though them. He was going the wrong way, towards Tabitha's flaming maw of destruction.

 _Don't hit the Herald!_ Corypheus silently screamed at his own war machine. He realized he had thought that too dramatically and that he was almost hysterical with panic. _We need him alive! At least for now._ He added embarrassed.

The scaly beast twisted away from the Herald and his party at the last moment before impact. Voicing her displeasure at being denied her kill Tabitha roared her fury so loudly that even the most distant of stars must surely be deafened.

Despite the hazards concealed beneath the powdery snow, Corypheus' long gangly legs ate up the distance between himself and his monstrosity like a starving urchin and thankfully without once sending him sprawling on his face.

Face to face with the Herald Corypehus didn't quite know what to say, until Tabitha spoke for him. A screech and snarl that spattered saliva everywhere. Some of it landed to melt purple spots in the white snow that encrusted Corypheus's velvet robe. The frost went up to his waist leaving him looking like he was half dressed for a wedding.

"Shut up! You fat lizard!" Corypheus snapped at the dragon before turning his attention to the Herald, ignoring her wounded expression. "You." He jabbed a bony finger at the elf. "Come here!" He didn't wait to see if he would obey or not and with the speed of a striking snake seized the wrist of the elf's marked hand. With dragon slime running down the side of his face the Herald wriggled and kicked feebly. Corypheus hoisted the hand to eye level as if the attached elf weighed as much as half a sack of potatoes.

The Herald may have been speaking then, but Corypehus was too engrossed in the sprawling mess of ragged white scars that marred his palm and spiraled down smooth pale sandy skin to wrap around a knobbly elbow to notice. That and his other hand was busy fumbling in his pocket, looking for the spying sphere to plant on the Herald. Multitasking was not something the Magister was good at.

"You've ruined it." Corypheus breathed, the quiet before the storm. "You have ruined it! Spoiled it with your fat fingered fumbling!" There's the storm. Corypehus threw the Herald and he landed heavily in the snow, it was just his luck to bump the back of his head on the one last remaining catapult.

"It is supposed to open! Not close! Open the way into the Golden City... but it was already black and corrupt _before_ we got there." Corypehus's angry ranting tapered off into crazed mumbling. When he looked up the Herald had picked up a sword much to big for him and was slowly edging closer to the catapult.

"Don't you do it." Corypheus warned.

The Herald raised the sword.

"No.."

The Herald swooped the sword down, the blade slicing cleanly though the trigger rope.

Corypheus stood stupidly watching the boulder sail though the air.

"Crap."

Tabitha scooped Corypheus up, her claws tearing the fabric of his robes. "No! Put me down! You stupid creature!" But the dragons survival instincts were overriding his commands. He could only watch as the ensuing avalanche swallowed both the Herald and the village whole.


	5. Chapter 5

Corypheus sat at his desk idly spinning a small dark sphere on its surface. Worry and boredom warred on his misshapen features, and boredom was staring to win. The Herald had been missing for the better part of the night, the sun was creeping over the horizon and colouring the world in the sickly grey hues of dawn. Between the patrols of the Herald's people and the still settling snow, it was too risky to send a search party of his own. Effectively leaving Corypheus with his thumbs stuck up his ass, so speak. Lost in cold thoughts of drowning in ice he spun the sphere a little too hard and it bumped into a pile of parchment ricocheting off and heading for the edge and a long drop to the marble floor. In his wild panic to catch it Corypheus sent the papers flying like a flock of startled yellow pigeons. The sphere looked like a little black marble in his big pale hands.

Since his arrival back at his lair Corypheus hadn't really known what to do with himself. He had drifted trough the hallways, rummaged in the libraries and even counted every spiderweb he saw and occasionally walked through. There was an appalling amount of them. All the while clutching the darkened sphere tightly to his chest as if it was the most precious thing in existence. Eventually he had found himself in his office devoid of his shiny shadow Samson and settled his rump into his chair at his desk, pretending to look busy.

 _Why are so many magical objects round?_ Corypheus mused, _This thing, the Anchor-bestowing orb, the ones that measure the Veil and most of the relics found in the ancient ruins of temples, all round. All Elven too oddly enough. Mayhaps the only shape those ancients knew, who knows?  
_

Speaking of circles his thoughts twisted around themselves in a never ending loop. _It might be too late for regrets._

His melancholy mood was rudely interrupted by Neema knocking on the open door, it would seem closing it had slipped his mind.

"What?" Corypheus whined moodily, unnaturally stretching the word into three syllables.

"Lord Livius Erimond, ser. He requests better quarters." She spoke his name dreamily, almost as a sigh.

 _Requests? More like **demands,** insufferable prat. _A dire thought occurred to Corypheus; _Don't tell me there's another besotted imbecile_. _We're barely coping with one of those as it is._

"Why have you brought his request to me? I care not for that powdered pricks comfort." _And it's not my job, that's Samson's. I w_ _onder where he could be..?_ Corypheus frowned as he cast a sideways glance at the Templar's usual spot, unusually vacant.

Corypheus had enlisted said 'powdered prick' from Tivinter to worm his way into the Orlesian division of the Grey Wardens and induct them into his regime. Gaining the Wardens would double his army and if their mages could be persuaded to bind demons to themselves, his military power would triple. _The more the merrier._ In preparation Corypheus would have to summon several powerful demons in the Fade and leave them in waiting for the Warden mages' call.

"If there's anymore 'of these _requests'_ tell them to take it up with Tabitha."

His sharp words momentarily transformed Neema's doe-eyed expression into a look of shock, then hate, then into a mask of indifference.

"I shall inform him of your decision." She intoned blandly.

" _Please do!"_ Corypheus dismissed her sarcastically. He yelled after her as an afterthought, "And find Samson! When you do, kick his ass back here!"

Corypheus had thought that the help of one of his fellow countrymen would be a great boon to his cause but he hadn't realized just how far his homeland had fallen. Livius called himself a _lord._ It may well be his actual title but in Corypheus's eyes he was lower on the societal ladder than a snakes belly. Still, Livius was better suited to the task than any of the other moron's at Corypheus's disposal. There was a certain charm to that greasy black mustache. Not very much charm but at least it was there.

With a heavy sigh Corypheus returned to staring into the spying sphere and the occasional glow of green light.

 _This won't do at all. There is no sense in wallowing in failures._

Drowning his sorrows in wine would have been his preferred method of cheering himself up but the corrupting darkness in the Black City had rendered him incapable of being intoxicated, as well as other... things. The next best thing would be to go and torment the peoples of Emprise Du Lion. He had had a minion purchase the ransacked ruins and dilapidated mine some time ago, but the sightings of a dragon had put those plans on hold. The Mage-Tamplar war had significantly decreased the value of the village and Corypheus thought it a delightful bargain. That and Coarse Spider Hairs were in high demand as of late.

When the sphere spoke to him unexpectedly, a faint whisper barely heard, he nearly fell out of his seat. Holding it close to his one crooked ear he heard a quiet yell of excitement as if from far away, "There!"

Snow crunching brittle under heavy footfalls as the voice came closer, shuffling, followed by more crunching and other unintelligible voices. _Someone has finally found the Herald at last._ Corypheus thought relived.

A muffled argument was cut short by the barking of orders. Moans of agony and soft reassurances faded into an unsettling silence. The Herald's coat pocket where the sphere's twin was nestled, must be packed full with snow for such awful sound quality. It made no further noise, except for the soft clink of ceramic or glass bottles.

Corypheus stared into the spying sphere for a long moment, if he squinted his eyes his reflection looked almost normal.


End file.
